


I Am More Than Me

by Kivan



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Soulmates, Soulmates that may seem like Vulcan Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 05:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16088993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivan/pseuds/Kivan
Summary: "He’d known it wasn’t right- his soulmate bond- around the time that he was six. He’d woken one morning with a jolt and, he could remember the cream stucco of his bedroom ceiling in Baltimore, but he could also see… something else. That was only the first time he’d seen thought his soulmates eyes- half awake, too early on a Thursday morning, and a hard clench in his gut when he realized it was because something wasn’t right." Soulmates AU-Andreil





	1. wedonttalkaboutit

I. wedonttalkaboutit

     In Neil Josten’s world soulmates were pretty common. Last he remembered reading something like sixty percent of the population had a soulmate before the age of fifty. Even after that, too. He recalls an article about a couple who found each other in their assisted living community. They made the local tabloids in Texas one summer a few years ago. “Love in retirement!” the headline had read.

  
     Neil was pretty sure he’d known he had a soulmate his entire life. There wasn’t just a day he can remember- like some people say- where he could just feel them. There has always been that feeling- the relative quiet under his skin that would ignite when, where ever they were, his soulmate would hurt.

  
     And his soulmate hurt a lot.

     He’d known it wasn’t right- his soulmate bond- around the time that he was six. He’d woken one morning with a jolt and, he could remember the cream stucco of his bedroom ceiling in Baltimore, but he could also see… something else. That was only the first time he’d seen thought his soulmates eyes- half awake, too early on a Thursday morning, and a hard clench in his gut when he realized it was because something wasn’t right.

  
     He was young then, and looking back now, years later, he couldn’t remember what that first incident had been. He could remember others, later. As they’d grown. And even a few times, when he’d woken or simply… gone too far, and he’d looked through, to see a rare moment when his soulmate had been looking toward the mirror, had maybe been looking back. There were other times, when he’d been distracted or bored and suddenly a feeling, like a press behind his eyes or a presence at his back would reach him and he’d know he was being seen through. It wasn’t often, but in those moments where he wasn’t just him, he’d felt tethered- held in place. And then it would pass and he would wonder…

  
     He’d avoided telling anyone, honestly not even thinking about sharing this part of himself- and of someone else- until he was in his preteens, and having a soulmate became news. But when his mother and he went on the run, he’d told her after less than a week. She smiled just a touch and told him it was okay- looking like she was already trying to come up with a plan.

  
     “But it’s not,” he’d insisted, and her face had fallen just a touch.

  
     “Why do you think it’s not okay,” she asked back, her pretty brow scrunching up.

  
     Neil- then Nathan- knew she probably thought he was embarrassed, or worried for this other person, this other part of himself. He didn’t know how to correct her. “It’s all messed up,” he answered, “I shouldn’t be able to see them.” His answer had puzzled her even more.

     “See them,” she asked.

     “See through their eyes, yeah,” he answered, then blundered on, “I’ve never even met them!”

  
     It was true, he’s researched it discreetly before. There were very few reports of soulmates “sharing experiences” as the articles put it. Most of the cases he’d found were shortly before a soulmate died, and the other participant in the bond would go through the terribly traumatic experience where they would live it through their soulmate. Other than the first time, Neil didn’t think his soulmate had been in real danger when he’d been able to see through their eyes.

  
     There were times when the pain on the other side of his skin felt like it would kill him, but he’d never been able to see what was happening at those moments- some of which he was thankful for, and them immediately regretful. If that had been his pain, he didn’t think he would want to be alone.

  
     But there were no recorded cases of soulmates sharing senses outside of trauma or death- in all of which cases the soulmates had been together for some time or at least knew each other before the incident occurred.  
     

     Neil didn’t even know his soulmates name.

  
Mary’s brow pinched together impossibly close, but she forced herself to smile as she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she answers him, but not dismissively. Nathan had just been surprised she’d believed him. “it doesn’t matter because they can’t be used against you,” she says, her pinched brow being matched by a pinched smile, “Never meeting them is okay, if it keeps them from getting them killed or helping your father find us.”

  
     And like that, the possible problem had been negated. Mary had never asked about his soulmate again.

  
     Even on the days where he’d feel that pain- he knew what it was that would happen in the middle of the night, but he’d just cry and bare it, wishing, wishing, that he could tear off someone’s limbs. She’d shush him from where she was tucked behind him, sometimes hold him until he’d stop shaking. But she never asked. Not even a few years prior when in the middle of a different night he’d woken with the feeling of torn skin and a smashed body. His first thought was car crash- he wondered if it was pay back for the run in with Nathaniel’s counterparts in Seattle weeks prior. The pain had receded quickly- leaving behind the same pressure and sense that it always did. He’d come to call it, the other side of his skin, because it was there, but it just wasn’t on him. The next few days he’d known his soulmate was still in parts and pieces, but they were alive. Even when- since a few months prior that felt like a ball of cotton tucked between the layers of his skin that made everything feel so much farther away.

  
     It wasn’t like knowing someone. Seeing moments twice a month through their eyes- searching for a sense that they were alive, breathing existing on the other side of his skin. It was more like an anchor. This person is still kicking, even after all this pain, I can do that too. It wasn’t a competition, but somehow knowing there was some there, on the other side of these senses made living just a bit easier. He didn’t need to know this other persons’ favorite color to know he wanted them to live.

     Sometimes he thought about meeting them- and quickly had to squash the bubble of hope that build in his belly. Meeting them would just be dangerous- his life was dangerous. And someday, Nathaniel would find him. Whenever he would get lost along that thought pattern, it was end in sadness. Because his chances of living, after Nathaniel, were slim. And he was sorry for the person on the other side of his skin for when that time came- because he was so used to being not alone.

     Now years later, Neil regretted not ever asking if his parents were soulmates. He wanted to imagine his father feeling his mother’s pain as her body burned on the California beach. Would he know she was dead? Would he care? Part of him thought, if they were- if his father’s flesh felt like it was boiling- Nathanial Wesninski would probably be enjoying it.

  
     As Mary Hatford’s body continued to burn on the beach, Neil gathered the last of his things, wiped his face and pushed across the hazy fuzz between his skins. I need you to live, he tried to tell the other person behind him, inside of him. Some part of his clenched uncomfortably, in his stomach or his heart- and he knew he had to keep going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a horrible idea. I have no commitment illusions. I just had to get this out.  
> I'll find typos later and update.
> 
> Happy Monday.


	2. whowouldwanttobethesoulmateofamonster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the time he finds Cas, Andrew has nearly given up on having a family of his own. But then there she was. And Andrew told her.  
> “I have a soulmate,” he says, quietly, and Cas lifts her head from her book and smiles so genuinely at him that Andrew can’t look away.

II. whowouldwanttobethesoulmateofamonster

Andrew had been two when he’s first felt his soulmate- though at the time, he didn’t know what it was. It had felt like being born again, he thought. The first part of his life, it had been background noise. Just a feeling under his skin that wasn’t his.

It was easy to separate the parts that were him, and the parts that weren’t. There were the parts that the other kids in the homes and the system made in purple blotches on his skin, as he learned to fight back- and then there were the sharp stings that never developed color but let his staring into space until someone asked him what was wrong- if anyone was there to notice in the first place. He stops whispering _sorry_ into the dark the first time his skin blossoms with a harsh blow, and finds it fitting that both of their life’s contain this much pain.

He never tells anyone. No one ever asks.

And then he discovered that he could see someone else’s life, in glimpses, thought their eyes. It was like a daydream. He learns this other person’s mother- thin, but not gaunt, pretty. Her brunette hair always had a sparkle to it when Andrew saw her, and her eyes always seemed so sharp. There was the father, too. A large man, with a not-so-friendly smile- that made Andrew wary. There were others, but when Andrew saw them, he was most envious of this other person’s parents- of his _family_.

By the time he finds Cas, Andrew has nearly given up on having a family of his own. But then there she was. And Andrew told her.

“I have a soulmate,” he says, quietly, and Cas lifts her head from her book and smiles so genuinely at him that Andrew can’t look away.

“When did you meet them,” she asks, head tilting.

“I haven’t,” Andrew answers, “I just feel him, sometimes.”

Cas’ smile hadn’t waned, just seemed to smooth as she nods slowly, “It’s different for everyone. I’m glad for you- for you both.”

It had felt like an admission, and an acceptance.

And then it had gone wrong- something changed for his soulmate. The glimpses he’d get into the other boy’s life shifted, the sleek halls and rooms Andrew usually saw changed to car windows and hotel rooms. On one late evening, as he’d been waking up from a nap, he’d seen the other boy, his normally auburn hair dyed a dark dirty almost back and he watched as he’d put contacts in- his perceptive blue eyes being tucked behind dark lenses. That was the first time Andrew got an inclination that his soulmate knew when he was watching- the boy paused after inserting the second lens and maintained his own eye contact as he lifted his pointer finger in front of his lips. Andrew imagined the soft ‘ _sshhhh’_ sound that would have come from between his lips, even as his vision returned to focus on the ceiling of his own bedroom.

Then, Drake came home from deployment. It was worse than any before, because this was one he wanted to keep. He wanted to stay with Cas, who smiled like nothing could be wrong. For the first time, this deep feeling under his skin felt like an invasion. Those moments when Drake would tell him to be quiet, push him down- _“Do it for Cas,” he’d mewl_ \- and then there would be a pressure behind his eyes and he’d hold them shut, not let anything through.

The pain he couldn't stop- but they didn’t both have to watch.

And then Aaron. Higgins was a good man, maybe a better cop- but Andrew couldn’t let his brother see. That what he told himself as he set the fire in the bathroom of the gas station on the corner. When the police came, he told himself again. When the firefighter’s came, and the shop owner and the nosey neighborhood ladies. Drake would never get to Aaron.

For three years, he watched the ceiling, the floor and somehow the exy court- but somewhere else, he was seeing the rolling hills of some mountain, or the steep build of a foreign city. He wondered where his soulmate was, but never pushed too far- never looked too long. He could see the mother, her hair now a spindly bluff mess- he imagined from dirty water and low water pressure as he watched them live. Watched them board a plane. Watched them come back to America.

‘ _When did you leave?_ ’ He wondered. ‘ _Why did you come back?_ ’

He thought about meeting him, sometimes. _Vaguely_. It felt like seeing pictures on someone else’s walls. Half recollections of _this is mother_ , _these are my shoes_ \- Andrew had no illusions that he knew this person well, or at all. But he spent a large portion of time while in juvie for those three years watching him. The fake brunette hair that he would pull on roughly to make sure it was still brunette, the pressure resonating in Andrews own head, though his mess of blond wouldn’t be touched.

After those three years, he would have liked to descend back into the blank stare through someone else’s eyes- but _Aaron_.

The first night he’d made the mistake of asking, “Do you have one, too?” The look Aaron had thrown back at him was pure horror.

“Have one _what_?” he’d asked.

Andrew had looked back. His brother was identical- but how alike could they be when Andrew was himself _but more_. If Aaron didn’t have a soulmate, how could they be identical.

“Nothing,” Andrew relented, after a moment, “Forget I said anything.” Aaron had nodded and gone back to pushing his dinner around on the plate. It took only three days for the lock on the door to appear, for Tilda to show her true colors.

Andrew made sure his eyes were closed when he told her to stop. He made sure his eyes were closed as he sat in the passenger seat of Tilda’s car weeks later too- this was for Aaron, he wouldn’t let his soulmate see. He couldn’t stop the pain, the glass shards in his hands and shoulder, the concussion that bloomed quickly or the bruises from the seat belt. He knows his eyes opened when he looked through the shattered windshield to make sure she was dead- but there was no pressure behind his eyes then, just that once.

Aaron wouldn’t look him in the eye afterward- but confessed to the abuse, the neglect, to save him.

Luther Hemmick was nothing new to the scope of men Andrew had met through the foster system- but when Nicky arrived days later, Andrew was as presently surprised as his new drugs would allow. The pills added a coat of paint across his eyes- and looking through seemed to be in slow motion, or underwater. His soulmate seemed out of sync with his thoughts. Far away and faded- like an old reprinted painting, all the color bled from it.

Andrew graduated high school the next spring. Turning down the Ravens felt like a victory, same as going to Palmetto with the ever-begrudging Aaron and over-exuberant Nicky. He’d only had a vague idea of a temporary family prior, and now his family felt phony and out of place. The last week before they would move into the dorms, Andrew stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom, waiting. _Waiting_ for the pressure to _push_ and his eyes to open. But they didn’t. ‘ _Will you come back when I come down?_ ’ He wondered. He wasn’t worried, he could still feel the pains and aches from their travels. His soulmate was still there. They were still both afloat somehow.

His first game with the foxes, when he came down from his medication per his agreement with David Wymack, as anticipated, the paint peeled back. He was able to see through for a moment, just enough for his soulmate to feel- an elated, jittery feeling billowing across his stomach.

It felt like being born again.

Later, when he was medicated again- alone again, he realized it was probably his own fault. He had never told the doctors that he had a soulmate. In the next moment, he doubted they would have cared.

_Who would want to be the soulmate of a monster._

Probably not Kevin Day. It was the first time he’d hated anyone for a reason- Kevin day was an Exy Junkie and Andrew had no desire to be a piece in his game.

“I want to beat the Ravens,” He admits weeks later, like its _news_. Andrew hears his laugh and wonders why he can’t stop.

“You say the same thing over and over, Day,” He mocks, tired already, “Tell me something I should care about.”

Kevin’s face sours, his face pursing, “You don’t care about anything!”

“Bingo!” Andrew answers.

Kevin sighs, his eyes rolling heavenward into to dark rain clouds above. They’re in the parking lot. Andrew was leaving. “They’ll kill me if I can’t play Exy.”

Andrew was not leaving.

“The Moriyama’s,” Kevin adds, the words sounding like he’s chocking on them, “If I can’t play, I mean nothing to them. If we win, I can regain value and they may…” He stops, shaking his head. Andrew turns back to face him.

“Go on,” Andrew prods and Kevin, for all his intelligence looks up, startled.

 _Sucker_ calls a voice from the back of Andrew’s mind, but he doesn’t think it sounds like his own.

There’s a game in November when he comes down too early and standing in the locker room, he looks at his reflection- his eyes just too hollow and his nose a touch red- and finally he sees _through_. Into another mirror, where muddy brown eyes stare back, as he watched the vacant stare opposite him slowly spread, grinning. He watched the lips in the reflection mouth a quick ‘ _hi_ ’ and feels the ground under his feet. It takes a moment of concentration- with them concentrating together before anything else comes into focus.

 _He’s happy_ , Andrew thinks, _he’s an idiot_.

But behind him in the mirror comes into focus- a locker room, curiously enough. Not the foxes, though.  The lockers are burgundy and smaller, the floor a dingy off white. The walls are white with a thick mustard colored strip behind him, Andrew can read- as his soulmate reads- _Millport Dingos_. And then Andrew sees the jersey on his chest- _Millport Exy_.

He would deny it later, but a two-minute internet search comes up with Millport Arizona in mere moments, before Andrew snaps Nicky’s laptop shut quickly and sighs.

_Who would want to be the soulmate of a monster._

Andrew convinces himself that night, that he didn’t want anything.

They’re pathetic season ends two weeks later and Andrew refused to look into the Exy line up for the _Millport Dingos_.

It was February before Kevin was shoving into their room and grabbing a bag. “I’m going to Arizona with Coach,” he announces.

Andrew feels the medication grin for him, his heart suddenly speeding up, “When do we leave?”

Kevin turns and glares weakly at him, “I don’t need you to follow me everywhere.”

“No, I doubt you would,” he agrees, “The Ravens probably wouldn’t mind though, would they?”

Kevin deflates just slightly, the same trick working every time.

“There’s a striker,” Kevin answers shoving some clothes in his bag. “Coach for the high school sent in a video- he’s good. Will need some polish, but we need someone to replace Jamie.”

“Where’s the school,” Andrew asks, already feeling it- like some kind of messed up kismet, like their terrible childhoods and fucked up families. He already knows before Kevin says-

“Millport.”


	3. closerclosernotcloseenough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “C’mon,” Andrew prods, leading the way toward the locker room.  
> “Where are we going,” Kevin asks, looking between Andrew and the Gym. Andrew doesn’t answer him as he heads for the entrance of the locker room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't do drugs, kids.

III.     Closer…

He’d never thought about it before, but Andrew spends the two hours leading up to the high school game- they hold up in Coach Hernandez’s office- wondering about proximity. He’d felt the same when they’d landed in Arizona, and last night in the hotel. But now, knowing they’re in the same building- his skin feels _loose_. There’s room in his mind, and though still weighed down with drugs, Andrew feels more alert than he has in quite some time- since he’d been sober, off the court.

The game begins, a live feed showing in from the gym, which is some fifty feet away.

How would it feel, to be on the other side of his skin?

Like the first time seeing his picture printed out on coach’s desk two days ago, Andrew feels like there’s a hiccup caught in his throat when he watches the figure on the screen run around on the make shift Exy field- literally, he runs circles around the rest of his team, around the _other_ team. _Neil Josten_ , Andrew recites, like he has been since he read it that first time.

“He’ll wear out too fast at this pace,” Kevin announces and Wymack hums.

“But man, _he’s fast_ ,” the older man adds.

They’re both sitting in front of Andrew with their athletic arms cross as they watch with their legs spread, for all purposes looking like twins.

“ _Comparatively_ ,” Kevin observes. “They’re going to lose, though.” Wymack huffs but doesn’t challenge him.

The Millport Dingos lose, getting knocked out two games from the championship. When he comes back to the office to see them, Kevin passes a heartfelt condolence to the aging Coach Hernadez before he and Wymack head back toward the gym.

“C’mon,” Andrew prods, leading the way toward the locker room.

“Where are we going,” Kevin asks, looking between Andrew and the Gym. Andrew doesn’t answer him as he heads for the entrance of the locker room.

 

b.     Closer..

There was an empty chasm in his mind the last few months. It made Neil stupid, he’d convinced himself.

After a quick burial, Neil left Mary on the beach in California and spent a day in San Francisco. Then he’d made it to Arizona, and a dying little town called Millport. There was a cold night in August, when he’d planned to just stay in one of the abandoned houses for the night and then travel on. The house through some good fortune hadn’t had the water turned off yet, and there was even a semi-sturdy couch and a questionable mattress in the main room. He’d had bought some matches and lit the water heater and had his first warm shower in weeks.

He knew to make any headway, he’d need his GED or diploma, and then to move again and try to find work. Millport and it’s boarded up houses had given him a way into public schooling and from there, he’d made some questionable choices. He joined the Exy team.

Before he and Mary had gone on the run, Neil could remember how much he’d loved the game- how much Mary had enjoyed watching him play the game. The ache from her death still too fresh in his mind, he signed up from try-outs, even as he could imagine her snipping at him for putting himself too far out there. But the activity felt good. The burn in his muscles as the scrappy Millport team did drills, and then conditioning. When they played their first game there was no way to go back after that.

He wondered a lot though, through his classes and when he was laying around the empty house, what happened to his soulmate. There was a blank and mute air around the edges of his head. His skins felt like there was a heavy cotton fuzz between them. It’d been there for months now- a while after the car crash, but still before Seattle. It wasn’t quite worry- but _wondering_. They were alive, he reasoned though, and everything else was repairable.

And then as quickly as the high had come, the Exy season ended in early April, with a close loss to a neighboring town that just had more manpower.

“Still here, Neil,” Coach Hernandez calls from the behind him. Neil doesn’t bother to answer as the older coach come to stand at the end of the row where he’s sitting. Neil turns to look at him. His coach smiles even as he sighs. “Didn’t see your parents tonight.”

“They were busy,” he answers.

“You said you would ask them to come,” his coach prods.

Neil nods, “I did. They couldn’t.”

Hernandez sighs, “Out of town again.” He doesn’t really phrase it as a question, but Neil nods anyway. “Well, either way, there someone here who wants to meet you.”

Neil’s pulse rockets- those words have never served him well. “Who’s that?”

Coach Hernandez turns behind him and indicated the younger man with a manila folder, forearms lined with outdated trible tattoos, who when spotted behind down to where they sit. “This is Coach David Wymack, of the Palmetto State Foxes.”

“Palmetto,” Neil hears himself state, or _spit_ really. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very Serious, and very out of time,” Coach David Wymack says and tosses the manila folder down on the bench next to where Neil sits stone still. “I can’t wait for your parents to turn up. Its stupid late in the season for me to be here, I know, but I have some technical difficulties with my last recruit, and you haven’t chosen a school. We need a striker sub and you need a school. Works out perfectly, doesn’t it?”

Neil’s hands tremble and he shoves them under his legs. Neil stares at him for all of a minute before concluding, “You can’t be here.”

“Yet here I stand,” Wymack retorts easily, “Need a pen.”

“I’m not signing this,” Neil answers, “I can’t play for you.”

Neil can hear Mary scolding him already in his mind. The strong look of disappointment lining her eyebrows, her lips pinching in worry. Always planning, always trying to stay ahead.

“I misheard you,” Wymack retorts.

“You signed Kevin,” Neil shoots back- and there it is. _Kevin_ \- Kevin Day. The raven who Neil- _Nathaniel_ can remember from his childhood, before running. Kevin who’d stood in the room with him while Nathan worked. Kevin Day, who last December had broken his hand in a skiing accident and then left the Ravens and shown up months later in Palmetto State. Kevin Day, who knew Nathaniel’s face.

Wymack continues without seeing Neil’s internal struggle, “And now Kevin’s signing you, so-”

Neil bolts. He had always been so good at running. Faster than his mother and just faster than his father. But he can hear her yelling at him from her beachside grave.

Hernandez calls after him, but Neil doesn’t slow.

His skin had felt off all day, like something was coming, a part inside him was _curling_ and preparing for _something_. And when he shoved through the door to the locker room, it seemed obvious that his skin was prepared for this. Because with his arms crossed tightly over his chest was Kevin Day, just on the other side of the locker room- right in front of the exit door Neil had been gunning for.  He turned ready to turn back the other way and take his chances outrunning Wymack, but he stopped again- and this time he doesn’t move.

Through some of the articles Neil read when he was younger and more curious, he’d read cases where soulmates would feel each other before they ever met. Unlike sharing experiences, it was much more common, about twenty percent of the populace with soulmates experiencing it slightly to intensely before ever meeting their soulmate in person. The part of Neil who had thought of meeting his soulmate often used to imagine what it would be like, cling to the stories that called it ‘indescribable’ or ‘like finding your other half’. But when the parts of Neil that had seen Andrew through his eyes for most of his life reconciled him with Andrew Minyard- the only person in history to turn down an invite to join Edgar Allen’s Ravens and the new dangerous goalie for the Palmetto State Foxes, what he felt in his mind settled more like a softly exhaled ‘ _oh_ ’ and something set in his chest.

Though based on how the corners of his mouth turned up and his hands have a harsh twist along the racket in his hands, Neil wasn’t sure what Andrew felt. Neil felt the need to reevaluate his early thought of _everything else was repairable_.

Before much else could happen, Wymack was bursting through the door. He passed a quick look between the three of them, before looking to Kevin. “I told you to wait in the office.”

From behind Neil Kevin answers, “Andrew’s idea.”

Neil felt himself frown and Andrew’s grin grew a bit. _What happened_ , Neil wondered, feeling the fuzz along his skins and loose edges of his mind- the part that lay between them. Almost as if he could hear the though, Andrew’s head tilts to the right barely.

Wymack looking toward where Andrew was standing just in front of him- Andrew finally breaks their stare to look back at him, one eyebrow loft and grin still gruesome, and gives a small shrug.

They haven’t spoken yet, and it feels like a line that once Neil crosses it, he won’t be able to get behind again.

Hernandez follows Wymack into the locker room a moment later- and it’s a moment, Neil realized, all of his senses are too high- his adrenaline telling him to run and it feels like everything else is going too slow.

Kevin breaks the silence, “Why did you run?”

“What are you doing here,” Neil snaps back before he can stop himself, the silence broken even as he turns to face Kevin, putting Hernandez, Andrew and Wymack behind him. “I said no. There are a thousand striker who’d jump at the chance to play with you. Why don’t you bother them?”

“We saw their files,” Wymack answer with a shrug when Neil glances back at him, “We chose you.”

“I won’t play with Kevin,” he says again, refusing to look at the corner where Andrew is lurking.

“You will,” Kevin answer this time.

“Maybe you haven’t noticed,” Wymack sighs, “But we aren’t leaving here until you say yes. Kevin says we have to have you, and he’s right.”

“We should have thrown away your coach’s letter the second we opened it,” Kevin adds as if to counteract Wymack’s statement that Kevin wants him “Your file is deplorable, and I don’t want someone with your inexperience on out court. It goes against everything we’re trying to do with the Foxes this year. Fortunately for you, your coach knew better than you send us your statistics. He sent us a tape so we could see you in action instead. You play like you have everything to lose.”

There’s a moment when Neil lets his eyes slide to where Andrew is standing, and his face is still twisted- but his eyes are sharp. For just a moment Neil feels like it’s seeing thought at the same time he’s seeing. A taunt pulls at the back of his mind, in a voice that isn’t his.

“That’s why,” Neil asks.

Kevin shrugs, “That the only kind of striker worth playing with.”

Suddenly Neil looks up at Kevin, and searching his face realizes, Kevin didn’t recognize him- the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks, making him suddenly nauseous with relief. This wasn’t a long-time comeuppance, there was no gunman in the closet waiting for him to cave and admit who he was. To say his name. None of this had the name Nathan Wesninski on it, and his father’s hands weren’t pulling Kevin or Wymack’s strings- or Andrew’s for that matter.

For a horrible moment, he imagined Andrew in his father’s hands. That made the nauseous relief turn to lead in his throat.

“It actually works in out favor that you’re all the way out here,” Wymack says. “No one outside of our team and school board even knows we’re here. We don’t want your face all over this summer. We’ve got too much to deal with right now, and we don’t want to drag you into the mess until you’re safe and settled at campus. There a confidentiality clause in your contract, says you can’t tell anyone you’re outs until the season starts in August.”

“This isn’t a good idea,” Neil repeats the thought tracking through his head out loud.

“You said that already,” Wymack notes, “Anything else? Or are you going to start signing stuff now.” He tosses the manila folder down on the bend to his left.

Neil takes a long moment. Distinctly not looking at any of them, eyes locked on the folder. Wymack stops pushing. Hernandez is still silent, other than his finger tapping against his windbreaker. Kevin is still behind him. Andrew watches him though, gaze heavy and locked- like he knows what’s going through Neil’s head.

Because for a minute, Neil imagines it. Playing Exy for a college team, with Kevin, but also with Andrew- which was possibility he hadn’t realized he had yet. Going to college, staying in a dorm- going to classes and eating cafeteria food. There would be risk- a high profile college team like this. Nathaniel would see him. But would it matter, he could run- pick up and go. College, or anywhere was just a Millport. He had the tools in his bag, that was all he needed.

But the chance- just the chance to get to know his soulmate would make it worth it, right?

It would probably make it worse when Nathaniel found him and he had to run, or else he would die.

But if he lived, it would be repairable. If they were alive, it was repairable.

And he could play Exy again.

“Let me think about it,” Neil asks finally.

“What’s there to think about,” Kevin huffs before Wymack gives him a disapproving look.

“Give us a minute, will you,” he asks, meaning the room at large. For the first time since Wymack had entered the room, Andrew moves. Depositing the racket in his hands onto the bench and then following out a huffing Kevin. Hernandez hangs back a moment too, but when Neil nods to him the older man bows out of the room.

Wymack talks. Neil listens.

Neil signs the contract the next day. Hernandez faxes them over to Wymack during lunch when he asks and smiles. This is a new kind of risk Neil isn’t sure he knows how to deal with. But for the first time since the Exy season started with the Millport Dingos, Neil feels excited- and it bleeds over the nervousness from the risks.

 

c.     notcloseenough

When he next sits back against the bright green beanbag chair Nicky had chosen to decorate their dorm room, Andrew thinks about his drugs.

The court mandated medication hadn’t bothered him since he’d been put on it over a year prior. But when he’d be standing in the same room with Neil Josten, he’d felt validated that there was nothing wrong with their already abnormal soulmate bond. It was the drugs. Because Andrew had heard the stories too, of how it felt to meet your soulmate for the first time- and he’d felt more attached to that person when he was two than standing in the same room with them . Maybe they were faulty, he reasoned, but even as he thought it, he knew it was a lie. He remembered the lurch in his stomach when their eyes had met.

Something in his body wanted to feel that connection, he figured.

Sinking into the beanbag chair, Andrew remembered that he didn’t want anything.


End file.
